h they often get mixed
up with the judicial proceedings, still they appear to deserve to be
discussed separately; and therefore I separate them a little from the
judicial proceedings, more, however, as to the time at which they are
to be introduced into the discussion, than from any real diversity of
character. For all discussions which are introduced about civil law,
or about what is just and good, belong to that sort of discussion in
which we doubt what sort of thing such and such a thing which we are
going to mention is. And this question turns chiefly on equity and
right.

XXIX. In all causes, then, there are three degrees, of which one at
least is to be taken for the purposes of defence, if you are limited
to one. For you must either take your stand in denying that the act
imputed to you has been done at all, or in denying that that which you
admit to have been done has the effect which, and is of the character
which, the adversary asserts. Or if there can be no doubt as to the
action, or the proper name of the action, then you must deny that what
you are accused of is such as he states it to be; and you must urge
in your defence that what you have done must be admitted to be right.
Accordingly, the first objection,--the first point of conflict with
the adversary, as I may call it, depends on a kind of conjecture; the
second, on a kind of definition, or description, or notion of the
word; but the third plea is to be maintained by a discussion on
equity, and truth, and right, and on the becomingness to man of a
disposition inclined to pardon. And since he who defends ought
not always to resist the accuser by some objection, or denial, or
definition, or opposite principles of equity, but should also at times
advance general principles on which he founds his defence, the first
kind of objection has in it the principle of asserting the charge to
be unjust, an absolute denial of the fact; the second urges that the
definition given by the adversary does not apply to the action in
question the third consists in the advocate defending the action as
having been rightly done, without raising any dispute as to the name
of it.

In the next place, the accuser must oppose to every argument that,
which if it were not in the accusation, would prevent, there being any
cause at all. Therefore, those arguments which are brought forward in
that way, are said to be the foundations of causes, although those
which are brought forward